


Doll

by reconditarmonia



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Clothing, Dancing, F/F, Non-consensual ageplay, warning: Delilah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22655212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/pseuds/reconditarmonia
Summary: Three scenes from a birthday.
Relationships: Delilah Copperspoon/Emily Kaldwin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Doll

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Seika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seika/gifts).



“Open it,” says Delilah, smiling. Emily unties the ribbon and opens the box, then lifts out another suit of fine white linen. This one has white lace sprouting from the short puffed sleeves and the cuffs of the breeches, and an oversized floppy white bow in front. Emily hates it already.

She makes herself smile back. “Thank you, Aunt.” Delilah sent the tailor the morning before, a pinched, hollow-eyed woman who flitted about her with a tape measure and wrote down how thin she’d grown in a little notebook. Delilah wouldn’t have the measurements taken any earlier; lest the new suit not fit exactly, she said, but Emily thought it must be purely to make the woman and her assistants work all day and night to have the suit ready in time.

“Try it on.” So she tugs her nightshirt over her head, the cold air raising goosebumps on her bare skin and making her nipples stiffen, and wonders spitefully why Delilah doesn’t dress and undress her doll herself if she’s going to sit there watching. The floor, too, is cold under her bare feet when she steps off the carpet, crossing the room naked to the mirror. The long thick scab on her thigh, from the last time she tried to escape — Delilah flew into a rage at the witch guard whose sword marred her skin, and Emily never saw her again — is faintly visible through the fine cloth of the breeches when she pulls them on; so are the dark hair between her legs and the brown tips of her breasts, that her underclothes will hide when it’s not just Delilah there to see her. Without stockings, she stands barefoot and gawky in the childish suit, which fits her body like a glove.

Emily sees Delilah’s face looming behind her in the mirror, and watches her as she combs Emily’s hair carefully with her long fingers, tugging when she finds a snarl, tying it out of her face with a slate-colored satin ribbon. Some days, Delilah permits her not to wear a bow, but today is special.

“There. My beautiful girl.”

***

Emily feels the heavy gaze of nobles and witches on her as Delilah leads her onto the floor for the first dance of her birthday ball. The orchestra’s playing one of her favorite songs — something she must have let slip over dinner to Delilah one night or another, or maybe just something she hummed in her room alone when a witch was listening at the keyhole — but there’s an odd buzzing to the music that Emily feels in the back of her skull.

“I used to sit in the kitchens, straining to hear the music from Jessamine’s parties,” Delilah tells her, wrapping an arm around Emily’s waist to pull her close. “I’d practice dancing on my own, or with an old shirt for a partner. And then the music would end, and I’d know that it was time for me to crawl out and clean up the spilled wine, and to think that next year would be the year I’d finally be allowed to come to the ball.”

Wyman could be somewhere in that crowd, Emily thinks, catching the lamps’ reflection glittering like fire in hundreds of eyes over Delilah’s shoulder. Emily knows Wyman’s alive, which is better than Alexi or her father, but to catch a glimpse of her face, among the faces contorted in triumphant loathing and those etched with powerless pity — she doesn’t know if she longs for it, or fears it.

“Don’t pout, Emily dearest,” says Delilah, turning Emily’s chin towards her. “You’ll be my consort one day, and you’ll have to put on a good face for our subjects.” Emily pastes on a gracious smile, thinking of Delilah chained to a large rock with her hands tied behind her and dropped off a ship at sea. Delilah takes her hand again and lifts it, and Emily twirls obediently.

***

Delilah sends a witch to summon Emily to her after the ball is over. Emily finds her in the bath, pale cheeks flushed pink and sweat beading on her face from the heat of the water. “Did you need me, Aunt?” she asks from the doorway. She can taste strange herbs on the steamy air.

“Don’t fret, my sweet,” Delilah says, sitting up and resting a foot on the edge of the bathtub. “I know it’s been a busy day. We’ll talk all about your guests and the gifts they brought you, but that can wait until tomorrow. Come and help me bathe.”

Beneath the water, Emily can see the shape of Delilah's long legs, the hair between her thighs, her narrow hips. She dips her hands in the bath and works the soap between them until they’re covered in lather, then rubs them along the wet, warm skin of Delilah’s shoulders and neck, and into her hair. She wishes she could strangle her, but she’s seen Delilah shake off a sword through the neck and a swarm of frenzied rats; a hand tight around her throat won’t stop her.

“When are you going to share your powers with me?” she asks. “There’s so much more I could learn from you.” About how to find the cracks in her invulnerability, about how to escape. “I think I’d like those lessons more than the ones you set me now.”

“When you’re ready,” says Delilah, and makes a sound as Emily presses her fingers into a tight muscle at the back of Delilah’s neck. “Your father was right when he waited to share the world beyond the world with you. You’re still so young. When you can give me your heart in exchange, as all the others have, then my powers can be yours, too.”

Emily takes handfuls of water and rinses out Delilah’s hair, the short strands drifting in the water like weeds. She soaps her hands again and washes Delilah’s breasts, feeling their slick weight in her hands and their nipples against her palms. Delilah sighs and arches her back in the hot bath. “Tell me you love me, Emily.”

“I love you,” Emily says, and hopes that some part of Delilah can feel that it’s still a lie.


End file.
